Tropical Fruit Forum - International Tropical Fruit Growers

Those look like mamey sapote leaves.

Both of my Carrie trees and Pickering are beginning to bloom. Nothing from the NDM #4, Coconut Cream, Lemon Zest, and Valencia Pride yet.

My Glenn mango has two large main branches. The more horizontal branch was grafted onto in October of 2017 and the more vertical branches was grafted a few weeks ago. I converted the tree from Glenn to Carrie since it is one of my favorite mangoes and Glenn is just too watery and mild for my taste. Try cutting back one of the main branches and graft onto the new growth, then do the same thing to the other main branch and so on.  You can also just cut it back to the main trunk, but it will take a while for new growth to appear and it will cause the tree to loose it's ability to photosynthesize for a while since there will be no more leaves. 

If someone were to eat the Alano fruits from the tree I am growing in my yard blindfolded, they will say that it is mamey.  A lot of my fruits are close to mamey in flavor and some have been identical.

You sure it's MBBS? I have 3 LZ trees loaded with fruit (hundreds in total), and think I only saw one MBBS infected fruit this year. Last year I had a few dozen.

Quote from: Tropicalgrower89 on May 13, 2019, 06:28:06 PM

Quote from: Cookie Monster on May 13, 2019, 01:57:47 PM

It seems like this has been a low disease pressure year for mangoes here in FL. So far, no MBBS on any of my trees. Crops seem like they're be a little early this year compared to last, which could help in mitigating disease.

Anybody with MBBS yet?

Two fruits of my lemon zest mangoes have advanced MBBS just as it begun to ripen and I eliminated some more that seem to have early symptoms of it. 10 less mangoes so far.  There are still plenty though. If it gets bad, I'm just gonna top work it to two new Zill cultivars.

I've seen many pictures of MBBS infected mangoes. It is MBBS. I do remember loosing a few LZ fruit to this disease a few seasons ago the last time it held fruit, but most of them were in great shape.  Hopefully, this doesn't continue to spread onto other healthy LZ fruits on the tree. By eliminating the infected fruit like I recently did, hopefully it will increase the chance of having a good healthy LZ crop. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

It seems like this has been a low disease pressure year for mangoes here in FL. So far, no MBBS on any of my trees. Crops seem like they're be a little early this year compared to last, which could help in mitigating disease.

Anybody with MBBS yet?

Two fruits of my lemon zest mangoes have advanced MBBS just as it begun to ripen and I eliminated some more that seem to have early symptoms of it. 10 less mangoes so far.  There are still plenty though. If it gets bad, I'm just gonna top work it to two new Zill cultivars.

Hello fellow tropical fruit enthusiasts.

I've just discovered a cool looking seedling that is pretty close to my fence line. I'm wondering if this is a surinam cherry or something else. 

Grasping at straws here -- any chance it could be sunburn? Heavily pruned trees can sunburn if not provided with shade.

The cuban may beetle literally killed my pace . They would defoliate it completely and then devour the newly emerging foliage. (Younger trees can't normally take two complete foliage losses in succession.) That was the only mamey that was close to the property line (neighbors have grass and hence loads of cuban may beetle grubs). All the others, which are away from the prop line, are doing great.

I think my "pantin" is actually a viejo, which as it turns out is an absolutely awesome mamey -- small-statured, strong bearer, very precocious, and quite good. Pantin has an edge in terms of flavor, but as you've pointed out, they are really finicky! I've lost 2 so far, one after a week of heavy rains (in well drained soil no less) and the other due to cuban may beetles. I've talked to others who've expressed the same sentiment about the pace.

If you're having problems with mamey not holding fruit, it's very likely a nutritional issue. Try giving it a good fertilizer with nitrogen. The 8-2-12 that Truly Tropical carries is magic.

Sorry to hear about your Pace tree. Those beetles suck. 
Sunburn does  make sense since these lower branches were once shaded by the main portion of the tree which grew really tall. The original tallest part of the Pantin tree that was fully exposed to the harsh sun had pretty bad scarring. Also, the very top branches of the Viejo have the same isolated bubbling bark spots (facing upwards toward the sun).  I've just looked at online pictures of sun burned fruit trees and the type of damage looks very identical to the damage on my mamey trees.  I have been using Lesco 8-10-10 palm and tropical (home depot is around the corner from my house) for the past year for my mameys and they love it.   I've just made the first application of the year on the last week of February and mixed in a bit of gypsum since I have sandy soil for the first time (a bit of calcium supplement). Another thing I've changed is that I am now spreading fertilizer all the way out to the drip line, so more of the feeder roots will get adequate nutrition from the fertilizer application. I am hoping that my consistent fertilization will sweeten up any new fruits that develop on my Viejo tree, cause the only fruit that it held to maturity split on the tree while it was ripening. I thought it was a total loss, but it softened up nicely in the microwave. The color and pulp texture was excellent, but it had no sweetness. I think the lack of fertilization and organic matter throughout that fruit's life had a negative effect on the taste.

I've always just used whatever is available. Never had an issue.

By the way, the Carrie mango I got from you is doing well. :-) I think you grafted that one onto a glenn seedling.

Hello everyone. I have a Viejo mamey that is beginning to mature on the tree. When I lightly scratch the surface on one side of the fruit, the pulp is a orange-red color, but when I scratch the other side of the fruit, it is still green. This was a couple of days ago. How long will it take for the whole fruit to transform and be ready to pick?


Thank you.

As you can see from my below photo, one of my Sweetheart Lychee trees refuses to green up. At first I thought it was lack of water, but heavy watering hadn’t changed it. Then I thought it may have been nutrient deficient so I fertilized with 8-3-9 with micros. The thing flushed out like crazy but leaves cane out yellow and never changed to dark green. Can’t figure it out. My other Lychee trees are all dark, dark green.

Try doing a soil drench using Sequestrene-138 chelated iron.

Curious. I haven't seen that in the trees down here in this part of broward. Granted, there aren't many planted out, but I know of one in Margate which was gifted to a friend of Walters well before LZ was released. It's been a productive and disease resistant tree for many years. PM is a minor issue here, and yes, this cultivar is highly sensitive to sulfur.

Internal breakdown on LZ is only an issue if not given enough calcium, and in this regard, it's middle of the pack compared to most other cultivars. Fortunately, lack of calcium is not a problem for most of Broward :-). OS sets fruit a lot better (dozens of bb's per panicle), but it's way more prone to jelly seed, and per my experience is MORE vigorous than even LZ.

Walter will cut just about anything down. He did cut down his orange essence tree several years ago (and numerous others as well :-). And the last I spoke with him, he was on the verge of axing the OS too :-). Memory is escaping me, but I vaguely recall him wanting to chop Fruit Punch as well. He's a bit of an oddball.

The biggest drawback to LZ (here at least) is lack of precocity and need for chill to flower. So, it does require some patience. I do think that dooryard trees are under far less disease pressure than those grown in an commercial orchard scenario.

I find it slightly odd that Gary has decided to abandon the LZ when he grafts and sells notoriously disease prone trees such as Julie and East Indian. But, alas, those foolish dooryard growers aren't typically concerned with reaping commercial-level crops; they look to flavor as a primary concern :-).

Quote from: Squam256 on March 08, 2018, 10:11:21 PM

Most people attending or listening to these talks aren’t going to have enough space for 2 Trees of one variety on top of an existing collection of numerous others. The majority are going to plant a couple Mangos at best, many only one.

LZ’s major and fatal pitfall  at this point is it’s extreme susceptibility to MBBS, but it’s hardly it’s only drawback. It’s highly prone to powdery mildew as well (and is coincidentally sensitive to sulfur, to whatever degree that matters in someone’s PM control program), has a very vigorous growth habit, and flowers poorly (particularly as a younger tree). It also tends to suffer from excessive abscission issues and the fruit’s flesh  can be prone to internal breakdown.  Outliers notwithstanding,These observations are based not only on my own experiences growing about 20 LZ trees, but also field notes from other growers in multiple regions.

Thus It’s probably a bad choice particularly for backyard growers with few trees AND commercial growers that can’t afford “black holes”. I suppose for people collecting numerous varieties, having one around may not matter much in the long run. But if you’re the typical backyarder and depending on it for your fruit year-after-year, it’s just not a wise choice in the era of MBBS, particularly with so many other excellent cultivars now available.

We lost almost all our LZ crop last year to disease, and that was with a spray routine that most regular people growing them wouldn’t  come close to following . It’s bad enough that Gary Zill won’t even graft it anymore, and Walter cut his down. We may ultimately topwork our dozen or so remaining trees unless we can recover a sizable enough percentage of the crop to justify keeping them around.

Yeah, I'm not axing my LZ tree, unless I see that the fruits begin to show disease issues. It didn't flower for the last two years due to being severely trimmed back because it was too close to the power lines for the first time, followed by Irma ripping off half of the new branches that grew back this past September.

Clay soils are not like muck soils are not like sandy soils are not like rocky soils,  We happen to have very high water table with sandy loam soil, rich in organic matter which is still moist in many areas during dry periods.  We have stock tanks that channel out thru the grove that drain the grove.  I can tell the height of the water table by the stock tanks which I fill as needed. If I watered everything twice a week it would be too much at my location and would cause major fungal issues and a host of other problems.  Obviously water is required as I stated above “ I am flooding my grove. “.  I’m just presenting my experience which works for me at our location.  I had no idea that modifying a water regime would be so controversial.

I agree. It depends on the soil. In my case, I have deep well-drained sandy soil which dries up quickly.